When I finished the worktable at North Port High School I began looking at other projects that could improve the shop workflow. One of the projects that jumped out at me was creating. an auxiliary workspace that could hold my tools and smaller projects to free up the limited space on my one work table. Since we only had one table in the shop we needed to keep it as clutter-free as possible so that it could still act as the catch table for our table saw. My predecessor had used a small pink cart to hold his tools, but I wanted to make something that was the same height as my new worktable, and a little more functional. I did some brainstorming and came up with an idea for a tool cart/ shop desk that would serve as an extension of the worktable.

The shop desk was meant to be as dense as possible. I didn’t want any wasted space, and I wanted it to be able to move out of the shop so that we could keep tools with us on stage during late-stage production work after load-in. I ended up being able to use the cart as a lectern when I was teaching the scenery construction and shop orientation sections of the stagecraft classes. The table was constructed using scrap pieces of plywood and spare castors. I found some scrap pieces of MDF that I used to make the work surface, but I also added a small panel of whiteboard that I could use to draw examples on for the students. Whiteboards are a great way to communicate with students. “A picture is worth a thousand words.”. This was the first time I used whiteboards in the shop, but it wouldn’t be the last.

The front of the cart featured a shelf that held two small bins that I used to store tools that I was using for projects or instruction, it also held extra staples and brads of common sizes so I wouldn’t have to get them from the back. Since the desk was meant to go out onto the stage away from my air compressor I wanted to make sure to include one on the cart so it could be moved easier. We had several small air compressors in the shop and moving one to this dedicated cart added to the convenience of use when the cart was moved away from the shop. I added a pencil cup, and an aluminum bar to hold drill clips, tape measures, and squares, and the interior of the cart was complete, but I was far from done adding to the functionality.

On the sides, I installed a vice as well as holders for the pneumatic staplers. I found the hardware for mounting the tools in an old drafting cabinet that was no longer in use. Since the cart was positioned at the end of the work table just under my air hose it made perfect sense to move the air tools out of a box in the tool room and into the shop where they could be accessed quickly. I also ran a port for the air compressor that came out of the left side of the cart so I didn’t have to worry about running an air hose from the front when the cart was being used on the stage. Finally, I added a kill switch to all the power running into the cart, this made it easy to shut the cart down at the end of the workday. The rear of the table was where I mounted a surge protector, a battery charger, and a cleat to hold clamps.

This cart was functional on all sides and met all of the criteria that I was trying to install in the shop. It was the first piece of shop furniture that I designed from the ground up. The work table was always the center of the shop, but this cart was my favorite piece of furniture. I used this table every day, for every project. there were times that I will admit to it becoming a catch-all for various tools and unfinished projects, but it made sure that my main table was clean. When I left North Port to go to the next job I joked with my colleagues that I was going to take the table with me. of course, all of the furniture I designed for the shop at North Port was meant specifically for that space, and although it would still function the same in the next place, there is no telling if I would need that type of functionality. Every shop is different, and they have to operate in different ways. All of the changes I made while at North Port High were carefully thought out and generally done once I had experience working in the space for some time. Sometimes I would make mistakes or have to modify my changes to work better, but that was part of the fun of re-organizing. Can I make this work more efficiently? How can I do this with little or no money? As stressful as it was to build a shop with no money and with scrap plywood, I wouldn’t exchange that experience for anything else.

there are a few changes I would make to this kind of cart in the future. At the time I wasn’t trying to spend any money on the cart, so I designed it with that in mind. In the future, I would probably add drawers and doors to the front to hold tools and to cut down on the sound of the air compressor. I would change the castors I used so that I could lock them in place. After several years I found that the marker wasn’t erasing as well as it did when it was new. I would still make the top a whiteboard, but I would use a specialty finish instead of the whiteboard I used before. I never really used the drill charger or the surge protector. I’m not sure if this was because they were placed on an inconvenient side of the cart, or if it is because they just didn’t really have a use. I think if I ever made a cart like this again, I would rethink where I put those two pieces to make sure they weren’t ignored.

I think that the shop desk was a very successful project that helped me solidify my overall thesis for how I wanted to reorganize the shop at North Port High School. Although it had some flaws, it was by far one of my most used pieces of shop equipment. I think that every shop could use an auxiliary cart to hold tools, not all of them need to be as over-engineered as this one, but if you’re a little bored during lunch one day, and you’re thinking about ways to solve a few problems in your shop, why not have a little fun, and put some extra time into a piece of furniture to make it extra useful?